1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to mobile phones, and more particularly, to a recording device incorporated within a mobile phone combined with playback and voice recognition dialing features for the purpose of dialing a voice recorded telephone number.
2. Description of Related Art
The use of mobile phones has increased tremendously over the past few years. Today, one can observe many people communicating on their mobile phones while engaging in different types of activities. Driving is one such activity. Frequently, the driver is trying to write down a needed phone number while operating the moving vehicle. The distractions associated with looking for pen/paper, taking down the number, etc. are dangerous. Recent studies suggest an increase in accidents attributed to increased mobile phone usage while driving.
In addition to driving, there are numerous other situations where access to pen/paper or the ability to physically write down a phone number is not feasible. Such activities may include outdoor activities (i.e., visiting a park, hiking, golfing), traveling, shopping or caring for a child, etc. A mobile phone is needed which enables a mobile phone user to record a phone number in a safe and convenient manner while enabling the mobile phone user to playback and call the recorded telephone number without manually dialing.
Although there are no known prior art teachings of an apparatus or system such as that disclosed herein, prior art references that discuss subject matter that bears some relation to matters discussed herein are U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,597 to Bareis et al. (Bareis), U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,957 to Heidari (Heidari), U.S. Pat. No. 6,260,012 to Park (Park), and U.S. Patent Application Publication Number U.S. 2002/010751 to Sun et al. (Sun).
Bareis discloses a telecommunications system which recognizes spoken commands over a cellular telephone. A speech recognition system is interconnected either internally or externally to a cellular telecommunications switch. The speech recognition system includes a call processing subsystem, a speaker-dependent recognition subsystem, a speaker-independent recognition subsystem and a data storage subsystem. The speech recognition system is integrated within a switch or switches as a shared resource. However, although Bareis discloses a voice recognition system for use within a mobile phone, Bareis does not teach or suggest incorporating a voice recorder with a voice recognition system to dial a recorded phone number.
Heidari discloses a cellular telephone having transmit and receiver channels with a digital mode communication capability having a memory and switching circuitry operative under control of a micro-controller. By entry of commands to the micro-controller, the micro-controller arranges the configuration of the switching circuitry to permit storage in the memory of a message originating locally from a user of the telephone. The message is inputted via a microphone connected to the transmitted channel or from a distant telephone connected via a communication link to the receiving channel. Subsequent playback of the message from the memory may be coupled via the switching circuitry from the memory and may be coupled via the switching circuitry to a speaker of the telephone to be heard by a user of the telephone or may be outputted to the transmitted channel for communication to the distant telephone. However, Heidari does not teach or suggest utilizing the recorded message with a speech recognition to enable the dialing of a recorded number.
Park discloses an apparatus for performing improved speech recognition in a mobile phone which allows hands-free voice dialing. In a speech recognition mode, a user's input speech such as a desired called party name or number is converted to feature data and compared to individually pre-stored feature data sets corresponding to pre-recorded speech obtained during a registration process. The apparatus matches the stored speech with the received inputted speech and automatically performs a dialing operation. However, Park does not teach or suggest a mobile phone which records a received phone number and automatically dials the recorded number.
Sun discloses a mobile phone having a voice recording feature. The mobile phone has a telephonic capability enabling the user to make/receive a call while in motion and a recording mechanism integrated within the mobile device which records an audio input from a user. Sun does not teach or suggest utilizing a recording mechanism in conjunction with a speech recognition system to enable the user to record a telephone number and automatically dial the recorded number.
There are numerous mobile phones which have voice recognition systems enabling a user to voice dial a desired number. Additionally, there are several mobile phones which incorporate a voice recorder in the phone to record a message by the user for later playback. However, review of the foregoing references reveals no disclosure or suggestion of a mobile phone which utilizes a voice recorder in conjunction with a voice recognition system to enable a user to record a telephone number and playback the recorded number for voice dialing of the recorded number. It is an object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus and method.